Velvet and Stone
by CaliforniaTD
Summary: Meet Erik Stone-Fist, a neurotic, and unusually philosophical nord sellsword who arrives at his brother's wedding shower after seven years estranged from his family. On that same trip, he finds a cryptic artifact, attracting the ire of an absurd villain.
1. Reunion

**Chapter I - Relatives**

Hills and moors of ice and snow, and a single homestead illuminated by interior candlelight, and most conspicuously, a cozy fire. The local brandy, greef touched touched his lips as his beady Nordic eyes stared at the painting. It was merely artwork, oil on canvas. But the concept of such a life and venue was something he deemed plausible.

Erik Stone-Fist placed the cup of brandy on a nearby table, where two of his distant cousins were passed out from excessive intoxication of alcoholic beverages, one on his back, and the other on his stomach. Most of the activity of his younger brother's wedding shower seemed to be concentrated in the streets where tables and music were arranged outside in the winter weather. The small fishing village of Dagon Fel hardly had any houses or venues worth holding a party in, so the planners had carefully picked a day where it was somewhat sunny and it would not be freezing cold. The End of the World Inn had checked in a few of the relatives while the rest of them spooned with the ones who lived in town.

The Imperial province of Morrowind's population may have been made up mostly of dark elves, though around ninety percent of the island village of Dagon Fel's sparse population was predominately inhabited by those of his fellow nordic race. Frequents of the tiny coastal hamlet were mostly weasel faced smugglers or frothing, greedy treasure hunters who arrived to illegally loot the nearby dwarven ruins of their artifacts. This wedding shower marked a rare moment when anyone beside the more unscrupulous characters poured into town.

Most embarrassing and disconcerting was that Erik didn't recognize most of the people there. Possibly because he spent a sizable percentage of his time aloof from even his closest kin. In fact, it was possible few knew of him aside from his closest kin. The nord's imagination was mostly in a state of despondency, and it was unusual for him to mentally dissect a topic unless he was absolutely necessary. But the novelty concept of his extended family having no idea who Erik was struck a sting of fear into him. There was nothing quite worse than one's soon to be sister-in-law mistaking him for one of the party musicians, or if it was that person's own mother if the luck well was completely stagnant.

He looked out to the dirt street from the tavern's heavily fogged window, as jolly silhouettes and blobs of blur pranced around with merry glee. Most were merely stationary, most likely more cousins, uncles and aunts drinking at the table. Twas quintessential nordliness to drink at least ten tankards of beer or mead a day after your fifteenth birthday. The pale light illuminated his coffee colored hair, and a face shewn with the beard of a bear hunter and the faint scars of a sub par bar fighter. The beard itself stretched just over the top of his adam's apple, and the scars, particularly on the right side of his face were inches long, but thin enough to be unnoticeable in low light.

Mustering the courage, his fur boots kicked his way out of the inn and into the street. The music was mostly wind instruments, puffing faint moist fog out of their tips. The sole fiddle player was of the reptilian argonian race, and his cool blood caused his fingers and entire body to spryly tremble like a recuperating booze hound. For the most part this did not affect the overall quality of the music, but every now and then there would be sudden bursts of chaotic dissonance in the melodies whenever he needed to shake the arctic sensation off his scaley shoulders mid-song.

There was a small fire lit in the center with permission of the watch, though nords, the people of Skyrim were distinguished for their ability to walk through a blizzard stark naked and laugh all the way through it, thus these folks were sparsely in need of artificial warmth. Though there was always the occasional haggard nord who cried like a toddler if he stuck his foot in a bucket of ice water for a few seconds, and those types usually moved to one of the warmer provinces. It seems that in Erik's family, there were no such people. They stood and danced around in summer clothing if they wanted to, and braved the winter.

Erik stepped between the crowd of socialites who yammered away about gossip, the weather, and family memories. He brushed shoulders with cousin Hlargan, who he recognized even now that he was not the boy he goofed around with so much in his youth. Much to his expectation, Hlargan did not recognize him.

When he reached the edge of the crowd, Lief, his clean shaven, long haired brother stood a the end of it, his arms crossed and his face contorted into a brooding frown. Erik stopped immediately, and they exchanged stares for an entire minute of pure awkward tension. To stir things up, Lief quickly clapped his hands together and held them out. "Seven years. Seven! Dad dies, Bera dies, Freyja gets married, and you never show. OR WRITE. Now I'm getting married and... you show up? Suddenly, for this?"

"Erm, uh y-yes." Erik stammered, clearing his throat. He was not used to quarreling with his brother over a subject of this caliber, one where he clearly did not have the upper hand in. As many vicious animals and even more vicious people he felled in his career, getting chewed out by his younger brother was quite an affliction. "Yes, Lief. Yes I never showed up... or wrote."

"Tons of crazy things happened since you've been gone. The family bought land in northern Cyrodiil, an ancient dunmer hero was allegedly reincarnated... and- and he saved this entire province of Morrowind, and- and oh yes and the Emperor was assassinated! Not a word from you since then, eh? Seven years enough for you and- you were fed up?" Lief's voice was more booming than he remembered it being, considering the fact that he was not an adolescent anymore. "You just... drew a straw and decided it was time to lug your deadbeat ass back into the gene pool and see your family? Have you decided to be a Stone-Fist again? Or is this some sort of temporary position? WHERE IN THE NINE HELLS HAVE YOU BEEN?"

"Lief, I'm sorry." Erik extended his arms to his sides, beckoning an embrace that he might not receive. "I'm sorry."

"You know, Erik, I've spent seven years thinking about what to do in this very moment if I saw you again, or... if you asked for money, or a place to stay. I imagined it through my head over and over. And you know very well what my reaction is going to be- oh for the love of-" Lief made a few sounds that sounded like an amalgamation of laughing, sobbing, and sighing. He then took a few steps forward, looking as if he was ready to throw a punch.

Lief's head hit Erik's leather spaulder as they both embraced one another. The former heaved a sigh and pat his leather clad brother's back. "Damn good to have you back, Erik. Damn good."

They unlocked, and Erik unsuccessfully attempted to give his sibling a noogie, but he wrestled his way out of every endeavor. He cupped his hands over his mouth and turned to the side. "Olaf! Go get a few drinks for me and my brother!"

"The hell?" Came an isolated voice from the already talkative crowd.

"That's right! My dumbass brother just pranced into town, and to celebrate, we're gonna make martyrs out of our livers!"


	2. The Brothers StoneFist

**Chapter II – The Brothers Stone-Fist**

The second round of drinks was laid on the table; two tankards of nordic mead. Lief clutched the grip and immediately consumed two mouthfuls of the strong liquid. He belched loudly and folded his arms across the wooden tabletop. "I'm telling ya, you've met Lifa you just don't remember her."

Erik grinned and merely sipped up some of the liquid in fairly rapid doses. "Yeah but I don't-"

"Remember a lot of people here?" They both cackled like overgrown schoolchildren, the dramatic irony being that those were the exact words Erik was going to utter. The younger brother hammered down yet more of the mead and then quickly set it down, crossing his legs and sitting back. "Lifa and I go way back. I didn't start courting her until around two years ago, but still... she lived in town." He leaned back even farther, attempting to become more relaxed. "So what is it that you do nowadays, my dim witted older brother?"

Erik set down his tankard, and readied his hands for conversational gestures. "I-" He stopped there, his mouth and hands freezing in place. It was evident he was in deep thought, as his diminutive nord eyes pranced about in their sockets. He was not aware if Lief had paid attention to his scars yet, or if he just withheld his knowledge of their presence. The little brother merely looked at the older, his eyes only breaking to check to see if the mead was still in the tankard. For good measure, he grabbed the handle and and swirled the honey liquor around inside the metal mug.  
>"I'm a financial adjuster." Erik spoke. "Financial ambassador, if you'd fancy." He then lifted the tankard and swallowed an obscene amount of the mead inside it, his esophagus burning as it nearly went down the wrong way. He coughed in a reflexive manner.<p>

Lief smiled. "Ah, so you-" He paused, his amber eyes squinting in a myriad of methods. "Um... what do you do in this trade of yours?"

"Well, I do the robust majority of my work for House Hlaalu here in Morrowind."

"That local noble family?" He chuckled. "What are you doing working for these dark elves-"

"Dunmer is the proper term, Lief." Erik calmly objected.

"Right. Dunmer. You came here working for dunmer and that was the reason we haven't seen you all these years?"

"It's only recently I've been doing work here in Morrowind." Erik held his tankard up and leaned it against his lower lip, his intentions cycling through whether or not he should take another drink or continue speaking. He finally set it down and rest his elbows on the table, cupping his hands together. "In my job I... settle monetary disputes between two parties. If someone owes somebody money, and doesn't pay, well, I... negotiate with them and settle the dispute. I mostly worked in Cyrodiil for a while, the heart of the Empire. The Hlaalus just happened to have a position here and... well they paid a lot more than my previous employers."

"You certainly are dressed to pursue diplomatic endeavors." Lief laughed, noting his brother's leather armor. The two of them sat and wordlessly drank the honey ales from their vessels, until another round of drinks was ordered. It was not a lengthy amount of time afterward until some other family members saw the future groom sitting and drinking at the table with a familiar looking stranger.

Erik's younger sister, Freyja stood over him, her hands on her signature pointy hips. Her brown hair was no longer tied in braids as Erik had remembered, but was fashioned into a simple ponytail. "Oh by the Gods..." Her voice sounding as hardy and angry as it always had been. She bit on her fingernails. "Where - has this sack of hairy grizzly-bear shit been?"

"He's been around." Lief replied with a smirk. His booted feet were placed atop the table, as if the mead had deep seated itself into his conscience. "Just not around with us."

Erik stood up and held his arms out as if to embrace. "Been a while sis." He smiled gingerly. "How have you been doing nowada-"

Freyja responded with a hay-maker to her brother's eye. He was caught completely off guard, and his arms flailed, his legs buckled, and his rump uncomfortably landed in the chair he had sat in before. Only this time his legs and back were wedged in the armrests. It took a few good seconds of flailing about until he broke free from the wooden jaws of his seat. Freyja had already walked away sobbing, and Lief was failing at trying to contain his laughter.

"Women." Lief shook his head. "They sure are a lot more complicated than men, especially when the blood that runs in their veins is the same as ours."

"A lot more complicated than I remember." Erik massaged his left eye socket with his fingertips and positioned himself back in the chair once he turned it upright. Immediately afterward a man with brown cropped hair and strangely shaped eyebrows made his way to Erik. A boy who looked no older than eight followed and curiously eyed the spectacle.

"I'm sorry, what was that all about?" The patron asked in a confronting tone.

"She was just being my sister." Was Erik's nonbelligerent retort, and the mead tankard immediately went to his lips.

The man's prose shifted. "Oh... I..." He stood up straight and suddenly chuckled and smacked his own forehead. "I uh- sorry. I'm Freyja's husband. I don't think we've been introduced. I uh-" His head turned back and eyed the path which his spouse had tread after storming away from her brother. Without a word he walked off, as if hoping to find her. Erik looked at the boy, who merely shrugged in response and followed him.

"Well, that was peculiar. Anyway, thanks for not doing what she did, Lief." Erik piped.

"I was a rat toe's length away from it, but I digressed at the last second. She'll get over it too, just give it time." The younger brother sat up when he saw his pride and joy, Lifa detach from the crowd and walk toward him. "Erik, I'd like you to meet my fiancee, Lifa... Lifa, meet my somewhat estranged brother Erik."

Still reluctant to stand up after his two pints and a slugging, he managed to carry through and hold out one hand to the woman. "Hello." She greeted with a stiff smile, while Erik merely bowed his head and muttered the word "charmed". His little brother sure knew how to pick them, as Lifa was quite easy on the eyes with wheat field-blonde hair that stretched just past her neck, full red lips, and oceanic colored iris.

"Your brother speaks very highly of you." She managed to break the silence.

"Not exactly true, but okay." Lief jested.

"Lief..." She grimaced.

"What? He deserves to know the truth."

Looking annoyed, they all hung their heads down waiting for one another to speak. The musicians were now playing a more somber and relaxed tune, the argonian still trembling in his cold blooded skin as he frisked the strings of his fiddle like a petrified kitten.

"So, apparently you knew one another for a while. You just didn't start courting one another until recently." Erik stimulated the conversation away from its degree of awkwardness.

"Why yes." Lifa giggled with a smile. "Sometimes you just don't know what's best for you until it finally hits you."

There was another periodical moment of silence.

"Well, I'm sorry to say, but I've got some business here." Erik finally admitted.

Lief's eyes pried themselves open and he scratched the back of his neck. "Oh?"

"Um... yes."

"Oh, so you attended our wedding shower because you just happened to be in the neighborhood, eh?" Lief bellowed, viciously backhanding his mead tankard which fell off the table and skipped across the street, dousing the legs of several people in the crowd, few seemed to notice or pay attention to the source of the trouble.

"Lief, please." Lifa sighed, walking over to him and urging him to sit back down. He immediately complied and heaved a sigh, shaking his head and making fake, pained smiles and grins. Erik merely hung his bearded head lower, and gave a respectful two finger salute to his brother. "I'll be here all night tonight and most of tomorrow."

"Yeah, go choke on your breakfast." His bipolar younger brother contested. Lifa countermanded the remark by smacking him in the back of his head. "But really, it was good seeing you... OLAF! MORE MEAD OVER HERE!"

Erikjord merely shook his head and walked off. His younger brother's temper was always marginally unpredictable, though it seemed to have worsened with time. He approached the jitterbugging argonian musician and produced a gold coin, the face of Tiber Septim branded into it, from his pocket, dropping them into a feathered cap that lay on the ground. The argonian merely blinked at him with his yellow, fishy eyes while continuing to play. The nord leaned closer to him.

The argonian lizard continued his viola track and spoke loud enough for only Erik to hear him. "He's living on the southwestern tip of the island, located on the near side of the bay."

"Thank you, Basks-In-Moonlight." Erik praised the argonian by name. "And why don't you play 'Rum Creek' after you finish this song." He dropped another coin into the overturned headgear, and the argonian nodded. Erik walked off, and head for his room at the inn.


	3. The Rarity of Clarity

**Chapter III – The Rarity of Clarity**

Erik's bare foot camped on the precept of the inn's staircase, his head poking out of the wooden pocket that blocked view from the dining area. He felt the best way to prepare for an engrossing day was to make certain that he initiated it focused, happy, eager, unstressed, unaggravated, and untouched. His sister, Freyja was quite a barbed, fiery and perilous obstacle, far more than a gauntlet of angry natives, or a trail of razor sharp caltrops in the way of his daily goal. And she was right there with her son, her unwieldy posterior plopped on the chair sitting at the bar, eating away at a breakfast of undercooked grits, oiled vegetables, and sheet-thin ham.

The entirety of Erik's body retreated back up the splintery steps. Mental curses and profanities burst in his mind like cerebral bubbles, his face in a pained scowl. He was not sure if it was the fact that he did not want his sister to deck him again, or if it was that fragment of wood that caught him in the seam between his big toe and the trunk of his foot. At least he thought it was a splinter in his foot, and not just some sort of adverse effect in his neurosis. He sighed, temporarily wallowing in the self pity concerning that his family may very well not care for him. His brother might have very well been an exception, and though alcohol was a potentially disqualifying variable for Lief's legitimate approval, he still welcomed him there.

A customary virtue of Nordic family reunions was that they often went on for weeks. Lief and Lifa's wedding shower was planned to carry on for a shorter duration than most, by standards of Nordic kindred. The motive behind this was purely location, as the family that was scattered about Skyrim, Cyrodiil, High Rock, Hammerfell and Morrowind, ultimately gravitated to the fishing village they were in now. In addition, cousin Ilfred Silver-Fish lived there, so they had him play a rather large role in the overall organization. The details of his disposition over that matter were not widely known, but if one was familiar with Ilfred, they would immediately suspect complaints as well as various mediums of passive-aggressive behavior.

Erik entered his room, the yellow and green patterned tapestry on the wall greeting him, as well as the various bits of goods and junk that belonged to him scattered about the room, from the bed to the worktable. He sat on the edge of his bed and stuffed his feet into the soft, foul smelling interior of his boots and continued thinking. Though not quite dysfunctional, his family did have a few bad apples that would irritate the others to the point where contact would be severed for a few months. Lief was one such family member, though his social blunders seemed to be considerably lessened to what it had used to have been. In fact, Erik was started to seriously consider a theory as to why the wedding shower was reduced in length; that Lief and the newly inaugurated bad apples of the fraternal and maternal ranks was actually worse than it ever was, and was treated as sort of a plague epidemic.

Erik sat up, his bearded face contorted into a curling twist of skin and hair that practically spelled pain, anguish, confusion, and near insanity. He had now just hypothesized that he was thinking about this entirely too much, and his brain felt like it was being grinded and chewed by his sense of self preservation, a trait (or a curse) he had picked up in the seven years he had spent away from his blood, and closer to the malevolent Dobermans of the world. He leaned forward and stood up, his feet now fitting perfectly into the boots as they carried him to the tableside. His calloused hands grasped his weapons, sheathing the broadsword and letting the axe dangle on his belted hip. Breathing deep, he head for the room's window that overlooked the street. From there he could see Freyja's husband exit through the front and head through the northern end of the street. Waiting to see if Freyja herself followed, he unlocked the half rusted hinge and opened the window not long before crawling through it.

Freyja and her son felt a nip in the hairs along the back of their necks that penetrated the spine. The noises of the exterior were amplified more than usual. More breezes flew in, and she immediately craned her head and waist around, staring at the direct opposite direction, which was the entrance. The innkeeper stood up from behind the bar after fumbling with the several kegs of tap beer. "Uh, ma'am, I think your husband left the-"

She held out her hand. "Yes, I know. I know." And then turned to her son. "Niothen, can you please close the door?"

Niothen, aged 8, was by no means one who enjoyed the various errands, chores, and even the most minor of tasks her mother gave him. Though even young, he was unusually intelligent enough to have a sense of honor and thankfulness to the lady who gave him life. Nodding, he scooted off the edge of the barstool and walked to the inn door. _While I'm at it,_ he pondered, _why not step out and get some fresh air? And some lack of maternal supervision._

He closed the door behind him as he stepped in the cool air, seeing a carriage for the warehouse roll by in the near distance, an ass yanking the cart along, chaperoned by a man in a forester's cap. The man's head was turned in Niothen's general direction, a genuine look of confusion and shock in his eyes. But his eyes seemed to aim directly above him...

Some driblets of snow and ice fell from above, followed by sounds of creaking boards and woodwork. What pursued it was a brief male scream from the heavens that sounded like a profanity trying to hastily evolve from a run-of-the-mill primal shriek. Shortly afterward, a bearded Nordic man clad in leather fell into view and smacked into the snow covered dirt, flat on his rump. The gravity of the impact eventually pulled his limbs and head down afterwards, and he recovered with professionalism the boy had never seen before.

As Erik climbed to his feet quickly brushing the flakes of ice off his leather armor, he checked his directions before his beady eyes caught a glimpse of his mop headed nephew, looking at him somewhat confused. "Aren't you my long lost uncle…?"

Erik stood still, his eyeballs the only parts of his body that were darting about. "Yes, yes I am."

"Why did you fall from the second story?"

Conflicting cells of Erik's conscience debated the prospect of telling him the truth, blatantly lying, or just dodging the question. But one proposal of thought struck a nerve more potently than any other topic. Though his siblings were more or less in a state of despondency due to his return, this child may be the best opportunity he has to reconnect with his family. The thought of it tempted his tear ducts twist a little, and his hand was already reaching to the top of his head and scratching his scalp like an amateur philosopher.

"Truth is… I'm hiding from your mother." Erik bluntly responded.

The child's eyes drew closer together, his eyebrows twitching in confusion. "Why?"

Erik stepped closer, his arms swaggering with unusual loose momentum as he turned around and sat on the second to first wooden step leading to the door. "What's your name, fellow?"

"Niothen." His nephew responded, sitting on the top step close to his uncle. "You're Erik, right?"

"Aye, Niothen." His eyes shifted from him and back into the street. "Niothen, grownups are rather complicated. Your mother especially, is a complicated woman."

"Oh, I know." The kid responded with a sudden smile.

"Yes, I'm sure it was a strange and trying experience being raised for six or seven years by my sister."

"I'm eight."

Erik's head cocked in his direction. "But, your mother has only been married to your father for seven years, I thought."

"Crossbow wedding."

"Ah… okay…" Both of them surpassed the urge to laugh to dispel the meek awkwardness.

"Your mother is mad at me for not showing myself for seven years… and it's entirely understandable." Erik's head lowered with each word. "I am not entirely at fault for my long absence, but I still am responsible for being a deadbeat uncle."

One of Niothen's brows sunk in mid thought. "That's not really true. Mum talked about you every now and then. Though she spoke of you with respect and melancholy."

Erik's ears stretched back, his brows raised. His nephew had confirmed his subconscious suspicions. "How childish of me. I- I had spent so much time away from your mother, and other uncle, that I just assumed… that they hated me…"

"There's plenty of love to go around, I suppose." The nephew smirked, leaning back, placing his hands on the stretch of the step and extended his legs where the ankles were suspended by the second step.

"It, it's so true-" He sniffled, a tear escaping from his eye and skedaddling along his nose. Niothen yanked the red kerchief from his neck and threw it to his uncle, who took it up and dabbed his eyes with the crimson cloth. "Thank you. Can I, uh, blow my nose…?"

"Sure." Niothen retorted with reluctance, then followed by the sound of the inevitable nasal discharge. "What line of work do you do, uncle Erik?"  
>Erik regained his composure and previous stature. "I do most of my work for House Hlaalu now."<p>

"The political family?"

"Yes."

"What do you do for them?"

Erik cleared his throat and laid the hanky behind him. "I'm… a financial adjuster. If there's somebody who hasn't paid my employers for a prior transaction, then I get them together, or mostly just one of them alone, and I work out the issue."

There was a bit of eerie silence as Niothen was pondering the statement. "So… you have to beat it out of them most of the time."

"What? No!"

"You're an enforcer." The nephew chuckled with a toothy grin.

Erik's fingers rubbed his right temple. "Yeah. Alright, so I may have to get a little rough with them every now and then." He raised his head and laughed with him. "For a kid your age, you're really sharp."

"Perhaps. I just assumed real financial ambassadors don't carry an axe and a sword on each hip."

Erik sat up a bit, and turned to the side, grabbing the axe by the head as he let it rest in both outstretched hands. "I bought this from a merchant in Bruma three years ago. A fine weapon."

Niothen grasped the weapon in his hands and inspected every inch with mature carefulness. The oaken shaft of the axe was around two feet in length, painted black and carved with a unique bore style that resembled a large wooden drill bit. The very bottom of the shaft had a nickel foot that resembled the head of a dragon. It's mouth was shooting connected nickel flame which curled into a hook to hang on one's belt or virtually anything else. At the top of the axe the blade was fixated, which was somewhat narrow compared to other more common broadaxe designs. The thin rear spike on the back ran through a passageway through the bored shaft and extended in a half triangle shape which pointed downward. Very small illustrations were etched on both sides, depicting an ancient battle of some sort. All in all, it was quite lightweight for a weapon a nord would wield.

"Brilliant. What about your sword?" He asked, handing the axe back to him.

"Ah, it's nothing special." He said, unsheathing the blade from his opposite hip and exchanging the two armaments.

"Wow!" He held the broadsword with one hand on the hilt, and the flat side resting in his other. It was Skyrim runic steel for certain, the blade roughly five inches wide and three feet long. There were several characters from ancient Nordic text etched into the sides, decorative patterns of various shapes and lines. The hilt was metallic and bulky, both ends of the fencing guard splitting and shaped like the wings of a bird or celestial creature. The stretch of the hilt was made from fine onyx, and the very bottom was a large steel headpiece almost as wide as the length of the wrist guard. The piece itself had a gap at the very bottom which held a large perfectly carved hunk of emerald. "Are you jesting? This sword is amazing!"

"It looks pretty, but the balance is off quite a bit, one edge of the blade is dull, and it's rather on the cumbersome side." Erik spoke. "That sword was a gift to me from a noble in the city of Markarth."

"It must be worth quite a bit." Niothen piped with a grin, running his index finger down the inscribed text, feeling each rhythmic bump. "What do the writings mean? It looks like ancient dialect."

Erik shrugged. "I'm not much for anything that isn't written in the common language, so I can't say."

"My dad has a four and half foot claymore in his house, though it's made from cheap iron." He spoke handing the weapon back to him, noticing that it was unpredictably shifty when the blade was compared with the hilt.  
>"I'm no fan of weapons that require more than one hand to wield." He stood up and returned the blade to its leather scabbard. "I assume you will be as strong someday?"<p>

"Hopefully." Niothen smiled, continuing to sit.  
>The door opened behind them, Freyja stepping out. "Niothen, there you are! And-" Her eyes locked onto her brother, and her body stiffened.<br>Erik brought his right hand up and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He really could have gone through the day without his sister flaying him verbally or physically, though he had missed his chance to evade this sort of moment.

Freyja slowly stepped toward him, her hands crossed at her waist. She stepped directly in front of him, her head hung low in an apologetic pose. There was an entire minute of silence, all of them staring at one another.

"Are… you staying?" Freyja asked.

Erik smiled and placed both hands on her shoulders. "When I get back in a few hours."

Freyja stretched her arms and embraced him. "I'm sorry about last night."

"I'm the one who should apologize."  
>They both retracted and smiled at one another. "This time…" Erik spoke. "I'll stay in the family for good."<p>

Erik turned and walked away into the street, turning and making a double fingered salute. "I've got some brief business to attend to. I'll be back in the late afternoon."

Freyja merely made a cheesy smile, jumping up and down and waving erratically then suddenly regaining her usual happy composure.

Her brother made one last wave before he turned entirely and headed west. With any luck, this would be his final task.


	4. Business as Usual

**Chapter IV – Business as Usual**

The silver candlestick, one of many, was originally intended to be rationed for retail purposes, but in a guilty geyser of temptation, Alsi Dreyduvo had to light it and set it on the table near the plate that was to nestle his lunch for the day. The light of the singular flame painted the occupied corner of the shack a stifled amber, while two blue paper lanterns glowed, one suspended above the door, and the other cradled on the ceiling above the shelves chock full of various chattels.

The boiled leather soles of his extravagant black velvet buckled shoes squeaked, even on the wooden floor in the fishing hut he currently resided in, and head over to several shelves located in the crude, but spacious structure. All five of the shelves were built to harbor four brackets to hold various materials. Four of these consoles being a rusted metal, and one of them a rigid wood.

Alsi turned and head for the counter. The coal fueled stove was fitted with just the right amount of provocation, as the pre-peeled potatoes were boiled to a wrap right as the coals began to bleed out their last emissions. He withdrew the pot that held the nuggets of starch and set them on the center table, extracting them from the tin urn with a silver fork and placing them atop slices of imported butter that rest in the plate.

Alsi Dreyduvo was a fairly plain looking dunmer, or dark elf, the usual pale maroon colored iris in the eyes, the dark blue skin, and the signature sagittate ears that flagged all of the elven races. The only real distinguishing trait that allowed him to stand out from his brethren, were his shoulder length dreadlocks. Alsi also had a penchant for selling swanky, legal goods on illegitimate markets. Illegal markets usually meant a profusion of rather queer characters, who dropped coin up front to purchase inventory from vendors like him, evading the usual Imperial taxes and tariffs. Some tradespeople in that particular field of sales woulds scalp the prices of their items, but Alsi himself found the niche market exciting and profitable enough.

He finished pulverizing two potatoes with his fork, the starchy nuggets becoming one with the delicious imported butter. He smacked his lips, relishing in the delightful flavor. He then reached over to grasp a pouch of sea salt, unfastening the stringed tie and spreading some grains atop the food. Setting it down he continued to consume the meal with great enthuse.

The door swung open, colorless sunlight casting a rectangular illumination, as well as his own shadow on the wall before him. A larger humanoid silhouette materialized, and the sound of a thick boot racked upon the creaky wooden floor, following by its sibling footfall.

Alsi stood perfectly still, his wrists resting on the edge of the table and his fingers curled. The fork slipped from his grip and plopped on the brink of the dinner plate. His eyes swung about in their sockets as the man behind him drew closer.

Erik Stone-Fist stood behind the dunmer, his calloused hand reaching to his side and producing his axe, letting the gripped weapon rest at his side. He intentionally bent over to the dark elf, brooding over his shoulder as they both legislated eye contact, the nord smirking while the dark elf suppressed expressions of genuine fear. Erik then craned his axe over the elf's shoulder, the flat side of the steel head dipping and scooping a miniscule amount of buttered and salted potato, returning it to the nord's mouth as he tasted it.

"Correct me if I happen to be wrong, but this does not seem like it was prepared from local ingredients." The nord piped, gently smacking the flat side of the axe on the side of Alsi's head. "If I were guessing, I'd say this butter is an expensive import. Somebody in House Hlaalu with your rank wouldn't be able to set up an operation like this…"

The dunmer scooted his chair to the side and turned as the nord paced away, his axe swinging about in his hand. "Dear outlander, you seem like a very mercantile driven individual. Perhaps you would like to invest in my business, I- I could give you a sizable piece of the-"

Erik turned his head and peeked over his own shoulder. "A bit early to be bribing me, Mister Dreyduvo." He then inspected the shelves of various goods. Most of it was fine china, cups, pitchers, pots, alchemical equipment, all melded from but the finest materials. "Besides, breaking bread with an embezzler that fattened his pockets with a portion of my employer's treasury..." His finger rubbed his bearded chin as if pondering. "That could pretty much guarantee we both get the business end of the same noose."

Alsi remained as quiet as an altar girl for a while, not wanting to answer until the enforcer broke the silence.

"Alright Alsi, let's not waste any time. Where's the money?" Erik asked, inspecting a few silver pitchers on the shelf, then turning his head to face the embezzler.

"I- I'll get it. Just tell Mister Aldivo that I need to-"

The sentence was discontinued when the nord landed a a swift elbow to the pitchers and cups, causing them to rain all over the other side and plummet into the ground, one reaching another shelf and knocking and breaking a bit of pottery.

Alsi leaped up and flailed his arms around like a wounded primate. "NO! WAIT! LISTEN!"

"I'm not liking your terms so far. You're going to have to tell me what I want to hear or you'll have to be selling your inventory in tiny fragments. Maybe even dust if you continue to chew my ass." Erik snarled. "You're quite lucky Aldivo is as fair man as he is, otherwise those two dockworkers outside would already be scraping you off the floor by now."

"Just, tell me what you want! How much money is needed? The amount, the tribute, the penalty!" He gasped, hobbling over to him and clasping his hands together, his knees looking quite close to hitting the floor and kneeling.

Erik grasped a cup made of limeware, one of the most expensive types of fine china in the continent. Though Alsi's face was in Erik's peripheral vision, it was evident that his eyes were nearly as wide as the two moons as soon as the trinket was clutched in the nord's hand. Erik tread past the dunmer and to a pitcher of water, checking its contents and transferring a portion of it into the cup. He placed the pitcher back onto the table and took a sip of the room temperature liquid.

"Let's see... counting the 5,000 septims you stole from Lasal Aldivo, and the usual percentage of tribute and penalty pay, I'd say it be around... two talents and one quart worth, whether it would be gold or House Hlaalu paper bonds."

Dreyduvo's face melted into a fraudulent grin, his twiggy eyebrows arching and painting a portrait of his conspicuous dismay. He inclined a trembling forefinger, and beat the roof of his mouth with a clammy tongue before speaking. "Um, I'm sure I can give Aldivo some of my stock. I'll repay him in full with my next sale."

Erik's green eyes were now seemingly transposing redder than that of the dark elves' natural iris. His teeth were clasped and bared into a macabre expression. Dreyduvo immediately receded, both of his open blue hands rotating in the surrender of the offer.

"I have one more way to pay you, but…" Alsi's left hand retreated toward his mouth as he began nibbling on his fingernails.

Erik took another sip from the limeware cup. "Finish the sentence, Alsi." He reached for the rope on his belt.

"I- I can't, they'll-"

The rest of the water in the cup was flung into the dunmer's face, temporarily dulling his senses before he was ambushed from the side, his legs pinned to the ground, not long before he was being bound.

"Please! Wait! Be reasonable good nord!" Alsi croaked. Though quite shaken to think what agonizing punishment he was inevitably going to endure, a fraction of his fancy could not help but be quite impressed with how quickly and efficiently Erik tied him up.

"Uppsy daisy." The enforcer jocularly piped, grabbing Alsi by the legs and shoulders and lifting him chest length. "Out to the docks with you."

There were many high pitched screams and pleas for leniency from the dark elf embezzler as the nord ran to the partially closed door. Alsi was used as a battering ram and his face smacked into the wooden ingress with such force that the door swung in a perfect one eighty degree angle and the hinges buckled and jammed, leaving it wide open.

When the pair emerged it was quite an odd sight for the two dunmer hands at the tiny smuggling dock as they were fitting a large crate and two baskets of ambiguous contents into a rowboat. The male dockhand removed his straw gondola hat and scratched his nearly bald scalp while the female looked at him just to see how he reacted. Erik assumed they were too intimidated to intervene, as he rarely knew of anybody to stand up for the folks he shook down. He recalled that one time where two good samaritans confronted him while he was kicking a headstrong merchant in an alley. He had to make himself scarce before they bludgeoned him to death, and to this day he admired them more than mostly any soul he had ever met.

In fact, Erik wished instances like that would happen more often, so he could be out of the job. He hoped that any second, the two proletarians would spring up to defend Alsi, and they would fight the good fight. Erik was quite adept at hiding it, but part of him loathed the job, even though the pay was more than feasible. He wished that the stiffs would march in and toss him around, kick him in the pills, and tell him that good always triumphed over evil. Instead, he laid the shrieking Alsi down on the dock and hammered his knuckles into his face, occasionally standing up to stomp on his abdomen.

Sadly, if he were out of the job, he would have to bid a fond farewell to this delicate stress reliever, no matter how destructive and generally negative the action was. Erik also made an invocation that Alsi would get to do this to some other being to cast the inevitable stress and aggression that was to barricade itself inside him. Not to wish he would pull the wings off flies, or ambush a random stranger in the streets, but pummel a man who absolutely deserved it. Like a crooked tax man who mouthed him off or accosted him at the tavern, presenting him a several compatible variables to give him a black eye and a chipped tooth.

Erik even began to pummel him slowly with emphasis on presenting the steps of a proper blow, the way he struck, and where. This was intended as an attempt to visually instruct him on how to fight, and where it hurts to hit. This caused both of the dock hands to stare at him more puzzled than before, and even Alsi in his physical throes, seemed to be perplexed by his odd mannerisms.

The nord ceased, bent over, and grabbed the dunmer by the lapels, yanking his bloodied face closer to his. "I suggest you find a nice, quick way to pay what you owe before I throw you to the slaughterfish. What was that thing you mentioned before?"

"There's-" Alsi gasped, turning and spitting a pinkened shot of saliva and wheezed. "There's a chest… containing a dwarven artifact, under a rock on the other side of… that closest hill… I haven't fitted it with a lock yet…"

"Did you trap it?"

"N-no."

"You'd better not have trapped it." Erik grasped him by the armpits and lifted him up, walking him to the side of the shack and allowing him to sit against it while his hands were still bound. "Stay here, and don't move an inch." He stood up and began to stride off the docks until his boots ceased to take steps. His head turned slowly. "Mister Dreyduvo?"

"Y-yes?" The embezzler weakly rotated his battered head to face Erik, one eye already swollen half shut.

"Sorry about this. It's really nothing personal." He cleared his throat nervously. "Really."

"Just tell, Mister Aldivo it won't happen again."

"I'll tell him he needs to be a better employer and stop giving his underlings the shaft." He warmly declared, gently smiling at him.

Erik was already walking away before Alsi could seize the opportunity to react to the enforcer's peculiar behavior. He took his silence for his ultimate defeat for finding a proper retort.

A few minutes later, Erik had unearthed the stone behind the hillside, a small crater in the earth dug to fit inside a chest that looked no more than ten by four inches in length. There were spots of dirt and two or three insects and grubs slithering atop of it. The nord began to reach for the trinket when the dirt in the near corner of the crate began to budge.

A cone of peach colored wormlike flesh burst out like a missile, the wider end baring a circle of countless needle like teeth and clasping the fanged pricks onto his forearm, the incisors sinking into Erik's leather clad wrist. He screamed several profanities as he felt the tips of the chewing instruments slightly begin to make contact with the skin under the bracer, the tail end of the creature wiggling with jovial anticipation.

This creature was what was known as a kwama. The kwamas were an absolutely strange race of local subterranean dwelling creatures that shared the traits of both mammals and hive-like insects. This wormlike strain was a forager, a type of kwama that scoured the surface and hunted for food or an alternate colony location, mostly alone, but sometimes in packs of around three.

Foragers were usually far more cautious when fighting something bigger than them, preferring to make quick lunges rather than to foolishly use brute force like this one happened to indulge in. Still, Erik needed to dispatch the fiend as quickly as possible. Foragers were known to release a greenish vapor from their mouths that put their assailants in a very brief, but potent state of paralysis if they were to inhale it. Though the effect lasted little more than around five seconds, it was enough of a duration to allow the creature to go for the throat without the potential issue of the target impeding the action.

Erik grasped his axe, unfastening the hook from his belt and smacked the center of the creature in a singular motion. It let go of his bracer, spinning in mid air before smacking into the dirt. The forager was a hair's breath away from leaping away to temporary safety when Erik's boot pressed his body into the cold earth. The creature groaned, which sounded like somebody shaking a jar of vehemently pissed off hornets in the most violent manner possible. The nord then brought his axe over his head and cleaved the creature in twine, the axe blade just half an inch from his boot.

Both halves convulsed as soon as he removed his boot from the head, bringing it around and kicking it quite firmly. The upper half of the creature soared in the air, making a comical whirring sound before it ricocheted off the trunk of a tree, and landed in a pile of dead leaves and partially melted snow. Erik breathed a sigh of relief, inspecting his ravaged bracer and pressing his fingers into it, feeling that the pain was not intense enough to warrant suspicion that blood was drawn under the leather.

It dwelled in the back of his mind briefly, the nord doubted that the location of the kwama was intentional, and even if it was, it would be the most carefully planned forager trap there was, a remarkable feat of animal control by a lowly embezzler. He chuckled and sank back toward the crater, hanging his axe on his hip and removing the small chest. It was made of shining copper, showing ornate pattern designs melted into the sides that resembled leaves or thorns. He shook the case lightly, hearing a stiff clanking within. He then laid the chest on the ground, one of his index fingers feeling for the switch under the disabled lock. The top jolted, and he pulled it open.

Inside, although small, was the most splendid display of gold and ruby colored velvet he had ever seen. The item resembled an excessively lavish ingot, etched in jewels, a red velvet bottom half, and spidery dwarven wording etched on the dais. His free hand slowly grabbed the rectangular device and set the copper chest itself down, walking away from it slowly and heading along the road that led back around the hill to the smuggling enclave.

As he walked, he thought of all the illegal treasure hunting that occurred within the walls of dwemer ruins. Many of those rapscallions were often fortunate and quite grateful to get their hands on a fragment of dwarven pottery, or a simple rusty wine goblet. What Alsi seemed to have in his possession was something Emperor Uriel Septim VII would have in his treasury. For all Erik knew, it could have been worth enough to buy a small city.

Later, he found his own feet hitting the planks of the creaky docks. But he merely stared at the ingot and smiled in amazement. "Hey Alsi. Why didn't you tell me you had this ridiculous thing hidden away?" He stopped and turned it around in his hands. "I mean it's practically enough for a goddamn king's ransom… Alsi?"

He looked up to see Alsi Dreyduvo slumped to the side, two arrows pinned to his chest. In the sea beyond he saw the stern of the rowboat disappearing behind a distant rocky cliff.


End file.
